Janet Daley was born in America where she began her political life on the Left as an undergraduate at Berkeley. She moved to Britain (and to the Right) in 1965 where she spent nearly twenty years in academic life before becoming a political commentator: all factors that inform her writing on British and American policy and politicians.

Tories afraid to mention that the price of AV is broken promises

How will the Conservative campaign against AV be credible? (Photo: PA)

Tim Montgomerie tweets that William Hague's rousing message to the Tory troops on the dangers of AV omits any mention of the fact that it would produce hung parliaments and broken party promises. Gosh, I wonder why?

How on earth is the Conservative campaign against AV going to be credible when it can make no reference to its most appalling consequences: coalition governments which make squalid horse-trading and secret deals the norm in political life, which render all previous promises made by party leaders to the electorate null and void, and which turn the results of elections into nothing more than opening gambits for negotiation?

In other words, without damning the very conditions under which it is presently in power - conditions with which it is widely believed to be quite content.